In 1962 Lotus lunched the Elan, with a so called Backbone Chassis (see Figure), a frame made by a central steel load-bearing hollow element that supported the engine and the suspension and contained the trasmission.
The body panels were in fiberglass and connected to the frame with structural adhesives.
In 1963-64 in Italy several city cars with unibody structures that used fiberglass reinforced plastics were launched: the Autobianchi Stellina (see below) , the ASA 1000 Spyder, the LMX, S.S. 100.
In 1967 Bayer built an experimental vehicle with load-bearing plastics body that made use of "sandwich panels", with two glass-fiber reinforced plastic layers and one polyurethane foam inner layer.
In the USA the Body-on-Frame solution was still the most adopted structure for production cars. |
Renaul R16 Unibody exploded view 
Autobianchi Stellina steel frame 
